NOCTURN

02/06/2026

Are you a q***r man with a story never quite told?

We're making Good Enough — a new immersive storytelling project — and we're looking for the stories that rarely get heard.

Not the coming out. Not the well-worn ones. We're after the quieter, harder-to-name experiences: the masking, the performing, the years of managing who you let people see, the long effort of trying to be enough.

We're especially keen to hear from gay, bi and trans men over 50 in Scotland, because these stories deserve room and we want to make sure they're heard. But if that's not you and you have a story that fits, we'd still love to hear it.

There are two ways to take part:

🔹 Share your story — online, written or as a voice recording. However it comes out is fine.
🔹 Become a creative tester — help shape the work itself through a small number of online sessions.

Everything you share is treated with care, and support is there if any of it lands hard.

Find out more and take part: www.nocturncreative.co.uk/good-enough
An R&D project by NOCTURN, supported by funding.

📸 Jamie Bubb

OUR FUNDERS & PARTNERS

Switchboard, OurStory Scotland, Sanctuary Q***r Arts, Cove Park,The Work Room, Birnam Arts, Citymoves Dance Agency SCIO & Artlink Central

Special thanks to CoStar providing technical support as part of their Collaborative R&D programme.

***rStories ***rArt

28/04/2026

11/04/2026

Day three at Birnam Arts.

Today felt really good. The space to fully re-read the first chapter of Alan Downs’ The Velvet Rage — sticky notes out again, statements and single words that resonated, captured and then reorganised on the studio floor. The compass is working.

One of the most profound elements of the book is the need for validation. And — I’m really paraphrasing here — how for gay men that validation can be so hollow. Because what we’re often validating is a pseudo-self. A version of ourselves we built for survival in a heteronormative world.

I feel the work is going to focus strongly on this. Validation and invalidation. What it means to be seen. And whether being seen is ever enough.

And then the irony lands.

Here I am, writing a post, sharing my process and dear reader, I want you to validate me. The hunger is real. But the bigger question, the one I’m sitting with, is whether that validation is genuine or whether it simply validates my pseudo-self all over again.

The book keeps asking the hard questions. It seems I’m starting to as well.

04/04/2026

I’m sure we can all relate to that daunting initial blank page.

I’ve written down the project title Good Enough and the pen lays silently to one side. The irony isn’t lost on me. A project built around whether we are enough and here I am, unable to feel enough to even begin.

Today I’m at Birnam Arts. It’s a beautiful space. Just the right size to not feel daunted by working on your own which matters, because I genuinely can’t remember when I last made a solo on myself. The security of other dancers in the space is more my happy place to inhabit.

I’ll be honest with you. I’ve procrastinated. I followed a YouTube yoga video this morning partly to stop my body feeling sedentary, partly to not feel quite so alone. It helped. A little.

I’ve been down this road many times, so it shouldn’t feel scary. But I’ve never had a break from actually dancing for this long before. Post hip operation — and its complications — I’m living in a body that has changed without my permission. It’s not just that I’m physically out of whack. It’s that I don’t quite recognise myself in here. The instrument I’ve spent a lifetime learning feels like it belongs to someone else.

What is it that I fear?

Is it that the movement will reveal the loss? Or worse that it won’t, and I’ll have to sit with the distance between who I was and who I am now?

I need to tame these inner sabotage voices. And be kind!

To this body.
To this artist.
To the version of me that used to move without thinking.



02/04/2026

More good news.

We’re in residency at , Aberdeen, 6-10 July, developing movement for Good Enough, funded by . Thanks to Citymoves for the stipend and for bringing their advice and support to the work.

The studio will be open across the week. Drop in, see what we’re making and ask us about the project.

Pro Class: Thursday 9 July, 10-11:30am. Details to follow. Hope to see you there.

31/03/2026

BIG NEWS - IT’S HAPPENING! For a long time I’ve wanted to make something for q***r men who are getting older. Something honest. Something that holds shame and survival in the same breath.

That project is now becoming real.

Good Enough: Multisensory Q***r Storytellings is a new work from NOCTURN — and Scotland is where the next chapter begins.

We’ve been awarded support through the Immersive Arts fund — Experiment strand. This gives us the space and resource to go deeper: into community, into story, into the artistic and technological heart of the piece.

None of this exists without the artists who have worked with me to bring it this far. Thank you. Genuinely. And I couldn’t be more excited about the creative team who are now stepping in to help carry it forward. You’ll be meeting them here over the coming weeks.

To everyone who didn’t hear good news this round: I’ve been there more times than I’d like to admit. The no’s are hard. They are not the measure of your work.

 

Photo: Jamie Bubb

10/10/2025

Sunshine and a dance studio not a bad way to spend a Friday.

Back at the beautiful I’m working on new material for next Saturday’s adult intensive. It’s been a while since I had my old pal, the notebook, out — scribbling half-formed thoughts and movement ideas. A happy ritual.

As a later life dancer, the mind is usually more eager than the body. But today, I’m noticing a shift — a willingness, a curiosity to move. Not perfectly. Just presently.

There’s a plan forming. A gentle challenge to keep moving in whatever way I can — in the woods, in a car park, or even inside the motorhome. Sometimes all it takes is a bit of sunlight and a notebook.

30/09/2025

I’m really looking forward to meeting new people this Saturday at Dance Base. One of the things I love most about this work is the chance to share space with others, especially when we’ve never danced together before.

If you’re curious about co-creation, later life movement, or simply want to explore what the body has to offer, please come along. You’d be very welcome.

Moving With: A Workshop in Co-Creation
Dance Base, Edinburgh
Saturday 4 October
15:00–17:00
Book via the Dance Base website